By Cassandra Cousineau for LVSportsBiz.com
In a shocking upset of Conor McGregor, Dustin Poirier pulled off the victory via TKO at 2:32 of the second round Saturday night in the main event of UFC 257 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. It started with calf kicks that got the biggest star in combat sports off his base, and then Poirier swarmed him with punches to end the fight.
Shortly before the event, Poirier was a +275 underdog with just 10 percent of the money behind him and only 12 percent of the betting tickets. That made McGregor a -335 favorite.
McGregor’s loss wasn’t just a personal setback for UFC’s top marketing machine, it reverberated more for the Las Vegas-based promotion as it will inevitably try to navigate another year filled with COVID-19 uncertainty.
UFC President Dana White acknowledged the source of that uncertainty and what it could mean for booking big fights through the remainder of this year
“It’s cool to have fans. We could do Conor at the Apex. I don’t know,” White said. “I don’t know what we’re gonna do. I don’t know what this year is gonna hold for any of this stuff with what’s going on in the United States right now. So, we’ll see.”
The “we’ll see” is in reference to the fact that White doesn’t have the same access to the top decision maker in the Oval Office as he did when his close friend Donald Trump was running the show.
“Sounds like things are tightening up over there. They’re talking about a 14-day quarantine like Canada. If that happens that’s gonna be a problem.” Unlike most major sports leagues in the United States, UFC has a wide global footprint when it comes to countries of origin of its athletes. That degree of presence around the world has resulted in enormous revenue.
A 14-day quarantine may not impact UFC’s top paid athletes as much as it will those fighters scheduled on the prelim portion of an event. Paying to uproot several members of there training team for at least two weeks could cost just as much as what they were expecting to earn for the opportunity. That decision significantly impacts who is available on the roster for US based events scheduled at the Apex facility in Las Vegas.
In 2019, UFC had a record breaking financial year with around $900 million in revenue. According to White, the promotion did even better in 2020, breaking company records despite every sport’s league on the planet struggling during the pandemic.
“For us personally, it’s the best year we’ve ever had. Crazy to say that, but we broke just about every record we have, except for the live gate, obviously,” White told TSN. “It was a very challenging year for us, to pull all this stuff off. It was without a doubt the hardest year of my career.
“During the pandemic, we were up 30 percent on ESPN, then as soon as it starts to average out, we’re up 18, 20 percent this year,” he said. “We broke the record (for revenue). Consumer products were up 166% this year. The list goes on and on. We killed it this year.”
That was 2020, and the first live gate of 2021 for UFC saw tickets that started at $795 Arab Emirates Dirham (about $216 USD) and went all the way up to $4,995 AED ($1,360 USD). With a reported 2,600 fans in attendance, White acknowledged the energy and availability of that sized crowd may be short lived.
“This situation isn’t going to be perfect, but Abu Dhabu is as close to perfect as you can get. I might have to move here this year,” he stated during Saturday’s post fight press conference.
“While we were here there was a new inauguration and we’ll see what happens. Traveling in America and all this stuff I think is gonna be another massive challenge for us.” Currently, UFC has seven upcoming events listed on its website, four of which are confirmed to take place at Apex. After that, White indicated the promotion would likely travel back to Abu Dhabi in June or July.
As for the future of McGregor, White believes “There’s two ways this goes; hungrier or I’m done. When you get off a 110 foot yacht, and you’re living that good life, it’s tough to be a savage when you’re living the life he lives and has the money that he has. On his way up, he was a young hungry kid, didn’t have any money, and he wanted nice things, wanted nice suits, nice cars, and nice houses. He’s got everything he’s ever wanted.”
McGregor immediately indicated he’d be back in the octagon this year fighting on multiple occasions. If White intends on moving to Abu Dhabi in 2021, he may have a new neighbor named Conor McGregor.